Dover man stands trial on charges he drugged women

By JAMES A. KIMBLEUnion Leader Correspondent

BRENTWOOD — Prosecutors said a Dover man gave three women a drug 20 times more powerful than morphine and sexually assaulted one of them after they went out for a night of bar hopping in downtown Portsmouth.

A jury began weighing evidence against Aaron Bonds, 44, who faces three counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault and eight counts of drug-related charges.

Assistant County Attorney Brad Bolton said that Bonds worked as a part-time cook at a local restaurant and socialized with the women while they were having "a girls' night out."

He met up with two of the women on July 10, 2012, at a local restaurant and provided one of them with cocaine that was laced with another drug, prosecutors said.

"He goes to the rear of the restaurant. He puts out two lines on paper," Bolton said. "She uses some. He declines to use it."

Bonds parts ways with the women, but exchanges text messages with the women later in the night and meets up with them at an apartment where the women are drinking beer, according to Bolton.

He puts more of the drug out for the women to use, but does not take any himself, according to Bolton.

A 26-year-old woman became so sick from the drug that she decided to go out to her front stoop, where Bonds allegedly lifted up her clothes and had sex with her. The woman told police that she had no control over her body and could not speak to fend off Bonds.

All three women eventually went to the hospital.

Defense attorney Brian Lavallee told jurors that the three women gave multiple accounts of their encounter with Bonds to Portsmouth police and hospital workers.

"This case is about regret. People who have too much to drink, people who do drugs, people bar hop; they wake up the next day sick, embarrassed and they regret what they did the night before," Lavallee said. "It doesn't mean a crime was committed."

Lavallee told jurors that one of the women who exchanged text messages with Bonds before meeting him at the apartment had deleted her portion of the conversations, and had changed the name she used to identify Bonds before showing it to police to make it sound more official.

A lab test of the cocaine bag found in the apartment yielded no indication of other substances, and police did not fingerprint the bag to link it to Bonds.

"When she walked that bag of cocaine into Portsmouth PD, she wasn't questioned about it, and they took her word for it," Lavallee said.